


so different from this hell i’m living

by hpfangrl



Category: Groundhog Day - Minchin/Rubin, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Death, Groundhog Day AU, M/M, There will be death, Time Loop, its les miz people it gets dark, the enjoltaire COULD be seen as friendship but. only if ur really hetero, tw suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22995643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hpfangrl/pseuds/hpfangrl
Summary: grantaire dies alone, last survivor of a failed revolution. then he wakes up.Groundhog Day!AU
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Grantaire & Gavroche Thénardier, Grantaire & Les Amis de l'ABC
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	so different from this hell i’m living

**Author's Note:**

> TW: SUICIDE, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH
> 
> first fic i’m writing for this fandom hope you like it

The first time around, Grantaire sleeps through the entire revolution.  
He awakens only to see the women cleaning the blood-stained streets.  
He walks to where the bodies are being kept as well as the confiscated weapons.  
He lays down in line next to Combeferre and puts a bullet through his brain.

And then he wakes up, to find himself slumped on the bar that he’d fallen asleep on the previous night. He dismisses it as a gory and terrifying nightmare, and drowns his fears in alcohol to numb the feelings of hopelessness for a failed revolution.

\- - - - -

The second time around grantaire is too piss-drunk to do anything. He watches the battle for around two minutes before he registers what he’s seeing. He stumbles out towards the barricade and attempts to climb over to the other side, bullets flying both ways. He reaches the top and greets Enjolras, who looks at him with such a look of disgust that he loses his grip. Clumsy drunkard, shows up late to the revolution, can’t do anything right.  
It’s good he’s there though, because his corpse acts as a shield for Enjolras, a shield from the bullets of the national guard.  
Enjolras stays on the barricade ‘till the end, and weeps for the boy who maybe was right all along in his cynicism.

Grantaire wakes up again.

\- - - -

The third time around, he concludes he is in hell. Revolutionaries don’t go to hell, drunkards don’t go to hell, cynics don’t go to hell. Suicides do.  
He awakens at the same barstool, for the third day in a row. He doesn’t stay. The funeral proceedings of General LaMarque have already begun.  
He runs out into the street and joins the students cluster at the side of the crowd. He begins to hum the melody that has filtered into his dreams, and slowly, slowly, the melody grows until it is a roaring wave of sound, a rousing call to arms by a sickened people.

/Do you hear the people sing?/

Enjolras looks at him with a new consideration. Grantaire grins sloppily, but inside he is screaming.  
Then; a shot blasts past them to hit an old woman standing at the front of the crowd. She falls to the ground, gurgling blood. The young soldier whose gun misfired has terror and heartbreak in his eyes, but it is too late. The crowd awakens with screams.

/Murderer!/

/She was an innocent woman!/

The smell of blood fills the air, but it is not the woman’s blood. Tt is the blood of Paris, the blood of her people.

The battle begins.

Seeing the barricade through sober eyes is different. Whereas in his drunken haze it looked impenetrable, a fortress, now it looks impossibly small. He looks towards the spots not yet stained with the blood of his friends, and he vows to do better.

The first battle is brutal, expending much of their ammunition but taking few lives. He sees Marius cradling the body of a young boy who he does not recognize. The boy’s hat slips off, long auburn hair spills out. He leaves Marius to mourn this mystery girl in peace.

He turns and sees Gavroche standing there, watching the scene with such a look of shock. He does not understand, the boy has seen death before. Gavroche chokes out a small sentence and Grantaire can’t comfort him, he doesn’t know what to say.

/That was my sister./

He draws the boy close, and they sit for what could be five minutes or fifty. They hear the others discussing the lack of ammunition. Gavroche gets up. Grantaire is still watching Marius and the girl- Éponine, he’s gathered. He wonders if she is the one Marius had fallen for. He isn’t watching Gavroche until he hears a scrambling sound from the other side of the barricade. 

He looks in alarm. The others begin calling, but he can’t even scream. He reaches for the boy and his voice comes back.

/Gavroche! No! Come back!/

He can see the way the child is collecting the bullets, almost taunting the guardsmen. They wouldn’t dare hit a child, he thinks. A bullet hits the corpse gavroche had been searching through. He leaps back in alarm. Grantaire is still screaming. He finally breaks free of the arms holding him back and scrambles over top of the barricade, just as the boy jerks back with a hand to his arm, the one that is now covered in a dark red stain that is growing steadily. He grabs the child, ignores the cry of pain as he jostles his arm, and he pushes him back over the barricade, leaving his back to the enemy. 

He is dead within a second, a rash of bullet holes peppering his back, but his heart keeps beating long enough to christen the barricade with his blood.

Later, when Enjolras cradles his cheek, it comes back stained red. He wipes it on his face like war paint, lightning in his eyes, and fights until his blood mingles with that of Grantaire’s. Enjolras doesn’t wake up.

Grantaire does.

\- - - 

The fourth time, Grantaire joins the students from the start. he waits until they are seized with their revolutionary fervor, then grabs a gun of his own. He builds the barricade with them, he stands at enjolras’s side and fights like a demon from hell’s own pits. He should know, he is in hell after all. he fights with such ruthlessness that even the students slightly fear him. They have never seen such a Grantaire before. He takes it too far. he shoots a civilian attempting to pass the barricade. Enjolras looks at him with a mixture of pure raw emotion; sadness and hatred and horror. Enjolras watches as Grantaire is executed by the guards. He doesn’t try to stop them, just watches with angry tears simmering as Grantaire mouths an apology at him.

Grantaire wakes up. (does it even have to be said anymore?)  
\- - 

The fifth time goes just like the fourth, but he doesn’t make the mistake. He takes out the soldiers before they have the chance to shoot each person. He runs out of ammunition just in time to watch a scared young soldier aim and fire at Enjolras. He dives to block it, but the shot hits. Red stains the lifeless eyes of their fearless leader. Red his coat, red his blood, red is all Grantaire sees. he takes an idea Marius had had and brings it to fruition. He grabs a barrel of gunpowder and a torch and runs towards the guard. He runs straight towards that scared young man, runs with murder and mayhem and destruction in his eyes. He brings the torch to the barrel.

The explosion is deafening. The students think they have won. They cheer, but they wonder the cost. Then the next troop of soldiers round the corner and gun them down where they stand. 

(you know what happens next)

-

The sixth time is the story you know well. Grantaire fights. He doesn’t fall, not even as his friends drop all around him. Bahorel is the first to die, felled by a guardsman. Combeferre is struck by bayonet while trying to save a man who is already dead. He looks up at the sky as he dies. Courfeyrac defends the center of the barricade until he too falls. Feuilly’s cap is stained with blood as his life is cut short. Jehan, sweet jean prouvaire is silenced forever by firing squad. Jolllly fights despite his cold, until his bright soul expires. Bossuet, Éponine, little Gavroche— Grantaire watches as Marius’s corpse is dragged away by the man they sent to execute the spy. He wonders if Marius and his love will reunite in heaven. 

He sees his friends fall, one by one. at last only one is standing. Enjolras, leader of the revolution, hypnotic and daring and terrible and powerful and Grantaire knows he admires this man greatly. He feels stricken by such strong emotion that he can hardly breathe. He sees Enjolras enter a building, guardsmen hot on his tail. He runs after them.  
They take aim. He calls.

/WAIT!/

/I am part of the revolution too. You must kill me as well./

He walks up beside the man he admires and it is then that he realizes. He walks up besides the man he loves. 

/Do you permit it?/

He takes the hand offered. He falls. There is enough time to look up, to catch the eye of the man pinned to the wall above him. He dies not facing his death, but gazing at his love. Grantaire dies smiling. 

He does not wake up. He does not need to.  



End file.
